A frazzled cowboy once said, "I'm so busy, I don't know if I found a rope or lost my horse."
Clearly that dazed and confused cowboy is trying to make sense out his situation.
How often, in your life, can you relate to that?
Organizational psychologist Karl Weick wrote some very interesting stuff about human behavior and organization. In one piece, he wrote about a team of smoke-jumpers who were dropped by parachute into a major forest fire. Though highly trained, some things happened that they were unprepared for. As a result, they became disorganized and sadly most of them died.
What happened? Weick wondered if there was a failure of sensemaking. Sensemaking is the process by which people give meaning to what they are experiencing.
Weick's concept of "sensemaking" refers to the mental process of interpreting and constructing the reality we find ourselves in. So defined, we are sensemaking pretty much all the time as we go about our daily lives. Most of…

Serving customers is one of the most challenging jobs out there. You need to be a good listener, an effective communicator, a calm conflict mediator, and an analytical problem solver all rolled into one. You must be very organized and have infinite patience. Plus you need to wear a sunny disposition even on days when you don't feel like it.

Many have endeavored to capture the key ingredients in customer service, so I have decided to throw my hat into the ring as well.

I call my approach Customer Service With HEART:

H = Help and Hear - You are there to Help the customer. Plain and simple. And the first (and most important) thing you do is listen. Hear the customer fully before responding. This may be the toughest part of listening. We have to make the choice to listen, especially when we are busy, preoccupied, stressed, and distracted. When you focus on the Other, pay attention to What is being said, as well as What is not being said. This includes the non-verbal signs the person i…